For the first time in a LOOOOONG time a ranked UP team will be playing in Chiles Center this Wednesday!!! (Since 1995, I believe, when the women's team was ranked).

I would love to see a rockin' Chiles to welcome back the team after the great run so far this season! GET OUT AND SUPPORT THIS TEAM! I guaranty you will not be disappointed in the level of hoops Reveno has developed.

Canzano's BFT show will be aired live from Chiles that night, with doors opening early (5 p.m.) for the event.... the timing couldnt be any better to have the show on campus!

Capt. Wally's will open at 6pm as usual, with the Chalk Talk 20 minutes prior to tip-off...

Ticket information is here. Honestly, if you are in the Portland area, you really need to get out and support this team... get in the door now, starting with the PSU game!

For those unable to attend: UP Video feed is here. UP Audio feed is here. UP Livestats are here. PilotNation Chatbox is here.

PSU is 1-4 so far this year, losing to Belmont (score: 74-67), Wright St (75-70), @Washington (111-55 ), @Stanford (83-64) and beat Cal Poly at home (92-83). We owe PSU some revenge after last year, so lets hope we can take it to the Viks, who were picked to finish 4th in the Big Sky Coaches Poll... PSU returns only 5 letterwinners from last year, as Coach Bone, Dominguez, Mara, Coston and Wright among others have departed. The 2 returning starters are former Pilot Jamie Jones and former Husky Phil Nelson.

Guys leaving the school during or after their eligibility is up is just as bad as guys failing in the classroom. So when guys like Alex transfer to Concordia, it hurts us even though it's not a failure in the classroom per se...

Guys leaving the school during or after their eligibility is up is just as bad as guys failing in the classroom. So when guys like Alex transfer to Concordia, it hurts us even though it's not a failure in the classroom per se...

interesting you use Alex as the example.

He's gone from Portland to PSU and now to Concordia. Whether or not he graduates from there will have an impact on all three school's APR's, but I don't think he actually had a lot to do with the NCAA sanctions, since he still is in school.

the players who were allowed to play and didn't have a chance to graduate in the six year time span are the ones that caused the sanctions.

I'm not naming names, but it's pretty clear who they were. you can find out by doing an oregonlive search. One was a pretty good player at UP and PSU who never graduated.

Ken Bone had a systematic efort to recruit players from other parts of the NW who couldn't cut it academically at their schools. They also failed at PSU, and the school is paying now for that failure.

UP actually suffered from a similar failure before Reveno. the difference is that the administration dealt with it.

It's pretty arcane, as is most NCAA reading. You can get a bit of the background on it by reading the backgrounders at the bottom to see how they apply it in real life.

But yeah, if a player leaves school "A" to go to school "B" the NCAA still counts the student as part of the first school's cohort until the student either runs out eligibility or leaves college. The original school only has an exposure based on the proportion the student went to that school. If that student comes on track at the second school, however briefly (at which time the player would be eligible to play) the first school's exposure is reduced, but not totally gone.

So basically if you keep a player 4 years and then they don't ever graduate, you have greater exposure than if the student transfers. So PSU became the school of ultimate responsibility for those kids, and that's why they took the 10% penalty.

There are all kinds of rules on extenuating circumstances that allow students to take more than 4 years (the average duration in school for all students is around 5 years to graduate), but that's basically how it works.

Keep in mind that the principle is that the low APR has to be over more than one year (I think 4 years is the minimum time before penalties are imposed - more if the school shows progress after a warning.)

Since Alex is still in school and obviously hasn't used up his eligibility and has grades good enough to play, I don't think whatever shortcomings in his academic progress hampered PSU's APR is part of the PSU penalty, though possibly any slippage he hard while at PSU is. UP might have some exposure, depending on what his grades eventually became and just how far towards graduation he is. I don't know anything about his current academic status, but by some measures just the fact that he is in school and working towards a degree might be a relative success.

If players eventually graduate from college, even if it takes more than the 5 year eligibility period, the APR for that cohort can be recomputed, as can the GSR (graduation Success Rate).

The big hit in PSU's APR was for players who used up their eligibility while at PSU , didn't graduate and show no prospect of an imminent degree, and aren't in any degree program at the moment.

Read a couple of the backgrounders in the link above, especially the one labeled "Defining Academic Reform" They will probably get the concept across better than I can .

If we can get this win, beating U of O and Portland State in the same season as well as being ranked will be nice for in state recruiting. Too bad OSU isn't on the schedule as well. I noticed that we end the season against Lewis and Clark...another in state college, but, not exactly one to boost the RPI prior to tournament selection time if we are indeed a bubble team. Oh well, at least we can reap the benefits of a strong WCC this year.

onetouchfutbol wrote:If we can get this win, beating U of O and Portland State in the same season as well as being ranked will be nice for in state recruiting. Too bad OSU isn't on the schedule as wellis too scared to play us. I noticed that we end the season against Lewis and Clark...another in state college, but, not exactly one to boost the RPI prior to tournament selection time if we are indeed a bubble team. Oh well, at least we can reap the benefits of a strong WCC this year.

Fixed your post.

Also, L&C is no slouch. Their coach is Bob Galliard, head coach at USF way back in the day - like, when USF was winning the WCC every year in the 70s. Portland State's first tourney team needed a buzzer-beater from Jeremiah to beat them, and this year they've lost by 15 to Oregon in Eugene, beaten D-II Sonoma State, and are going to smoke my Bearcats come January. Just sayin' ...

onetouchfutbol wrote:If we can get this win, beating U of O and Portland State in the same season as well as being ranked will be nice for in state recruiting. Too bad OSU isn't on the schedule as wellis too scared to play us. I noticed that we end the season against Lewis and Clark...another in state college, but, not exactly one to boost the RPI prior to tournament selection time if we are indeed a bubble team. Oh well, at least we can reap the benefits of a strong WCC this year.

Fixed your post.

Yeah. OSU brought in Sacramento St. this year. How'd that work out for them?

I'm sure he's a great coach (Galliard), however, we've got very little to gain in terms of RPI by scheduling them on the last game of the season...even if we win. Hopefully, we've already made our case to decision makers by then...

onetouchfutbol wrote:I'm sure he's a great coach (Galliard), however, we've got very little to gain in terms of RPI by scheduling them on the last game of the season...even if we win. Hopefully, we've already made our case to decision makers by then...

I agree with you there. I think this was scheduled as a tune up for the postseason a la what St. Mary's did last year.

and look what happened to St Mary's with their little "tune up" at the end of the season last yr.

The NCAA really to St Mary's last yr and snubbed them. Hopefully by then we will keep winning regularly and our strength of schedule plus good WCC play won't require us to win the conference tourney to make the NCAA tourney field MesaPilot1

@Hopefully Basketballhead can win the dance contest at the local club in Vegas, because they stacked the deck last yr. he tied with a ZAG fan. But, half of Spokane was in Vegas(What you expect, there's nothing else to do in their area[sorry Nut&SS11], and going to Vegas to them is like a little kid on his first trip to Disney) and voted for Basketballheads rival.

I am warming up to the idea of scheduling that game then... we play our last WCC regular season game at home on 2/27 vs. SCU, and if all goes as planned, we wont play another WCC game for 8 days, until Sunday 3/7 in Vegas in the WCC tourney semi finals (assuming we are the #1 or #2 seed; even if we are #3 or #4, we wouldnt play until Saturday, 3/6). 8 days is a long time, that time of year, to not play a game...

maybe we could play them again the weekend of 3/12, to stay sharp for post-season play...